Found Magazine

Found Magazine, created by Davy Rothbart and Jason Bitner and based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, collects and catalogs found notes, photos, and other ephemera, publishing them in an irregularly issued magazine, in books, and on its website. Items found and published have ranged from love letters to homework assignments, and they are contributed by people who find them in a variety of public places, all over the world.

The idea of Found Magazine started when co-creator Davy Rothbart found a note mistakenly left on his windshield in Logan Square, Chicago. Rothbart shared this peek into someone else's private life with his friends. He and Jason Bitner, a friend Rothbart met at an NPR pick-up basketball game in Chicago, began soliciting other found items from their circle of friends. Originally presented as photocopied fliers of some of the best finds, the pair realized the volume of found material they collected warranted a full magazine. Laying the material out in a zine format, Rothbart and Bitner took their creation to a local Kinko's, intending to make 50 copies to share with their friends who provided the magazine's content. An unexpected patron, actually an off-duty Kinko's employee, left Rothbart and Bitner with 700 free copies. With such a surprising abundance, they decided to give the excess to local stores to share with everybody. With the support of Quimby's Bookstore and other Chicago independent book sellers, the magazine sold quickly. Realizing their project appealed to more than just their friends, Rothbart and Bitner renamed their collection of photocopied finds Found Magazine #1 and started gathering material for future editions. Found has grown from a Chicago-based photocopied zine to a nationally distributed annual magazine. Still retaining the essentially zine format and look, Found is up to 9 issues. A 250-page Found book was released in May 2004. A sister magazine, Dirty Found, started publication in 2004. Dirty Found was started to provide a home for the smuttier, more explicit, and generally sexually themed finds that Rothbart and Bitner wanted to segregate from the more conservative Found. Since 2008, Dirty Found is out of print and will not be reprinted.

The success of Found allowed both Rothbart and Bitner to leave their day jobs and work full-time on the magazine and other personal projects. Rothbart moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Found is now headquartered, while Bitner went to New York City where he managed their East Coast office for a short period of time before leaving the project.

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